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Articles From Inside Us From Inside Us: Experiencing the Film Actor in Michael Haneke’s Caché Binoche stresses: ‘I was a little bit paranoid, By Joerg Sternagel because Haneke told me absolutely nothing. I figured that he wasn’t especially interested in Keywords: Caché, Michael my character, and I was doubtful and hesitant. After a month of this, I finally asked him why Haneke, Daniel Auteuil, he hadn’t said anything to me. The question Juliette Binoche, film acting, surprised him. After that, for the last two weeks spectatorship, phenomenology, of the shooting, he wouldn’t leave me alone. I Maurice Merleau-Ponty almost wished I hadn’t said anything to him! As a director, he is extremely specific, but he gives his actors the freedom they need. His precision reminds me of music: he likes brief pauses, and long breaths.’ Daniel Auteuil continues: ‘I avoid asking the director questions as much as I can. I like working with directors who tell me where ‘I always say that a feature At the press conference presenting Caché at the Cannes Film Festival 2005, Michael Haneke film is twenty-four lies per points out: ‘I always say that a feature film is second…’ twenty-four lies per second; the lies may be told to serve a higher truth, but they aren’t always. I think the way the videotape is treated here to enter, where to exit, how fast I should go. shakes the viewer’s confidence in reality. The That’s as much information as I can manage.’ first sequence you see in Caché is ostensibly Maurice Bénichou agrees: ‘I don’t think it would reality, whereas it is actually a stolen image be interesting if we were instructed on what filmed with a camcorder. Of course, I am wary to do. We’d be liable to act out the explana- of the reality we are supposedly seeing in the tion instead of interpret the scene. As Daniel media’. 1 At this conference, Haneke is sup- said, we make our entrances and exits, speak ported by his leading actors Juliette Binoche, softly or loudly, move quickly or slowly. When Daniel Auteuil and Maurice Bénichou. Juliette a director has an important story to tell, those 2 | film international issue 39 Articles From Inside Us are the only clues he gives you. In the end, the performance elements having a basis in inten- screenplay, which is their written instruction, tion and (sometimes serendipitous) chance, is what is interpreted by the actor's body.’ it is the actor’s voice that carries the paralin- guistic features that create nuances of mean- Acting and ing in their intonations, inflections, rhythms, tone, and volume. Similarly, it is the bodies spectatorship in film of actors that provide (at least the basis for) Each attempt to analyze acting in film raises the facial expressions, gestures, postures, a set of questions that are both essential to and various gaits film audiences encoun- academic discussion and research in stud- ter. (Baron, Carson and Tomasulo 2004: 12) ies of the moving image, and that are far from being answered easily: ‘How can act- The core aspect of the interrelation between ing in film be defined?’, ‘What constitutes the performance of an actor as staged and screen performance, acting on and for the set in scene for the screen, and the event of screen?’, ‘What is the signification of the watching the performance as experienced by film actor?’ (Wojcik 2004: 8-11) and ‘How is the viewer, have to be considered when ana- the film actor on the screen experienced lyzing contemporary screen performances and by the spectator in front of the screen?’ their effects. In front of the screen, the viewer Questions like these go with Paul McDon- is confronted with the image of a dynamic ald’s challenging and significant claim for the film creation reaching him through the repre- acknowledgement of the actor’s importance sentation of the moving bodies of the actors, in the analysis of film: ‘Analyzing film acting or, as James Naremore points out in his pio- will only become a worthwhile and necessary neer study Acting in the Cinema from 1988: exercise if the signification of the actor can be seen to influence the meaning of film in some Clearly films depend on a form of com- way. In other words, acting must be seen to munication whereby meanings are acted count for something’ (McDonald 2004: 26). In out; the experience of watching them this context, aiming at an understanding of the involves not only a pleasure in storytell- significance of the actor and the significance ing but also a delight in bodies and expres- of film, every aspect in film and every means sive movement, an enjoyment of familiar of film except the actor should not be stressed performing skills, and an interest in play- exclusively - the emphasis should not be solely ers as real persons. (Naremore 1988: 2) on, among others, the screenplay, the camera- work, the lighting, the mise-en-scène, the edit- Where meanings are ‘acted out’ and ‘organic ing, the makeup and the costume. The starting unities of acted images’ are created in the point for an understanding of the significance process of film-making, within an understand- of the actor and film should rather be to shift ing of ‘the job of acting to sustain the illusion towards the analysis of the actor, his voice, of the unified self’, where performances are body and movement, the significance of them, set, the enjoyment of the spectator watching according to McDonald, ‘when the actions and these performances on the screen, the appeal gestures of the performer impart significant in the final cut, in fact, does not exclusively meanings about the relationship of the charac- lie in the pleasure of following the plot, but in ter to the narrative circumstances’ (McDonald watching the actors themselves and their per- 2004: 32). Moving forward with the attempt to formances (Naremore 1988: 5). As Naremore understand acting and spectatorship in film, does in his work, it is useful to reconsider the it is also helpful to adjust to the suggestion writings of Russian theorist and filmmaker of Cynthia Baron, Diane Carson and Frank P. Pudovkin who convincingly identifies the film Tomasulo, stressing the significant features actor, and also the film type, to play a part on of film acting and, as a result of this, shift- the film: ‘one must possess a sum of real quali- ing towards the signification of the actor: ties, externally clearly expressed, in order to attain a given effect on the spectator’ (Pudovkin Regardless of who originates or selects a par- 1948: 107). Watching the actors themselves ticular performance choice, and in spite of and their performances attain effects on the www.filmint.nu | 3 Articles From Inside Us spectator, as they are outwardly expressed. day-dreams’ (Wolfenstein and Leites 1950: 12). Adding to Pudovkin, for understanding act- While such a psychoanalytically motivated ing in film and its effects, it is not sufficient approach marks one approach to analyze film to analyze the actor and his role as a star, to and spectatorship, and this certainly represents sum up certain mannerisms the spectator is the general concern of the authors, the notion used to watching, or to look at the use of the of ‘they did it, we only watched’ becomes an actor’s qualities by the director. On the con- interesting, if contradicted, observation of the trary, scrutinizing the form of communication, relationship between ‘performers and onlook- the experience of watching, as Naremore sug- ers’ when heading towards a phenomeno- gests, serves as a means for analyzing acting logical description and understanding of the in film. Part of the enjoyment of film is cer- signification of the film actor. Certainly, the tainly based on following ‘familiar performing film actor, the ‘performer’, is ‘incapable of see- skills’ of the film actors, whereas the interest is definitely intended towards the film actors as ‘real persons’ (Pudovkin 1948: 108, Naremore ‘By thinking through the 1988: 2-4). Within the assumed communication actor, the spectator regards process, also initiated by familiarity and inter- est, where meanings are ‘acted out’, the given him as an agent, whereas by effect is that of an affect thoroughly elicited only thinking about him, the by the experience with elements of human material, both by the actor and the specta- spectator reduces him to a tor. The spectator watches the film, he feels mere object.’ and comprehends it, and responds to it with all his senses. He communicates with the film ing’ the spectator, the ‘onlooker’. At the same actor who elicits sensory responses from him: time, the spectator, in the cinema, appears to the actor significantly guides him through the be ‘insured against reaction or reproof’ from film and simultaneously enables him to think those he watches. But, let alone his possible through the actor's body as well as through his wish to ‘see the actors as they really are’ and to own body. In the process of communication, become interested in the life of stars, he finds the film actor develops and decisively turns himself related to and affected by the film actor. out to be a well-known companion for him. He actively responds to the film actor, does not passively ‘become invisible’ and energetically The signification of acts within a visual, auditory and tactile field. Here, the contrast to the argument of Wolfen- the film actor stein and Leites can be emphasized by claim- ing that there is not less, but more than meets Consider a quote from the chapter ‘Performers the eye, while watching and experiencing film and Onlookers’ in the renowned book Movies: and the film actor (Wolfenstein and Leites A Psychological Study written by Martha Wolfen- 1950: 246-62).

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